The Holy Land Principles: Lowering the Bar on Human Rights

In the coming months, shareholders of three U.S.-based companies will be asked to vote on the Holy Land Principles, a new set of principles focusing on corporate labor policies in Palestine/ Israel. As corporate complicity in human rights abuses in Palestine/ Israel becomes the focus of growing public concern, a new voluntary code for U.S. corporations doing business in that conflict zone is a necessary development. The following report describes our analysis and critique of this new initiative, it explains why we do not support it, and outlines some suggested improvements. We hope that it will help create more conversation and more ideas to support corporate respect for human rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory.